Let's redefine "damage taxes"

[Aikaal]

This wouldn't work without designing encounters for triple melee, which would entirely shift the paradigm for raid design.

A ranged can pretend to be a melee, but a melee can't pretend to be a ranged.

You are right but here's the issue with that statement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9_t7md58v0

I look at this week 1 Ninja clear and I really can't tell if he's a melee of ranged physical. He moves so much and has 75% of the arena to smack the boss. On this fight, you can at 100% have quad melee and keep full uptime for all of them.

Also, I do want to mention that Smummoner have a melee combo and Red Mage also have a 1 to 3 melee combo. (They are casters) It feels extremely biased that the dev team heavily favors melee playstyle.

[Dyvid]

You are right but here's the issue with that statement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9_t7md58v0

I look at this week 1 Ninja clear and I really can't tell if he's a melee of ranged physical. He moves so much and has 75% of the arena to smack the boss. On this fight, you can at 100% have quad melee and keep full uptime for all of them.

Also, I do want to mention that Smummoner have a melee combo and Red Mage also have a 1 to 3 melee combo. (They are casters) It feels extremely biased that the dev team heavily favors melee playstyle.

This is one of the huge problems with the battle design that Endwalker added, Huge Bosses who's hit box is half the arena. The only way for "range tax" to works is if melee have to move out of the hit pocket.

[CKNovel]

This wouldn't work without designing encounters for triple melee, which would entirely shift the paradigm for raid design.

A ranged can pretend to be a melee, but a melee can't pretend to be a ranged.

Due to current design, you could bring 4 melees, 2 of them would have to adapt for the very few ranged mechanics such as P5S puddles or the quite rare spread here and there.
In content like P7S you would barely see any thing change, melee uptime is given.

On the contrary even, in P7S and P8SP2 it's impossible for a range to pretend to be a ranged.
Due to healing, mitigation and raidbuff, it is forced to play like a melee in all mechanics except one or two.

[Rithy255]

I think mainly the "caster" issue stems from melees you have to also consider just how much more popular summoner is then black mage currently, While Mobility and ease of use, raise, extra utility Makes a difference, Summoner/RDM should also do more then they do.

I more or less don't really think Black Mage is too high, just melees are, BLM actually suffers from mobility issues and can have a tough time compared to any other job in this game, I think the issue comes from more that melees are too high and casters/physranged need a general DPS boost, you will always take a melee on that "free" 4th slot.

BLM should be top damage (yes higher then sam/monk), Other casters and Physranged also need a buff, I just don't think it's a issue of "BLM too high" because it's more complicated of a balance issue then that.

[Aurora428]

You are right but here's the issue with that statement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9_t7md58v0

I look at this week 1 Ninja clear and I really can't tell if he's a melee of ranged physical. He moves so much and has 75% of the arena to smack the boss. On this fight, you can at 100% have quad melee and keep full uptime for all of them.

Also, I do want to mention that Smummoner have a melee combo and Red Mage also have a 1 to 3 melee combo. (They are casters) It feels extremely biased that the dev team heavily favors melee playstyle.

I'm not saying melee don't have leeway or that triple melee wouldnt work this tier (NIN in particular has a lot of leeway with mudra)

But even last tier there were mechanics like Phoenix spread, Pinax Bio, far towers in Act One on P4S P2. There were plenty of near-full uptime fights that still had limited places for the tanks and melee to be. Even on this tier we would be forcing a tank to run out for regular octaflares, having a melee go far with first wind debuff in Agdistis, and having a melee go to far towers in Carbuncle

I don't think melee should be doing meaningfully more damage, but I think "at most two melee" is core to their raid design, and they aren't going to allow triple roles.

I don't mind the concept of the role bonus. It only was a horrible addition because it was used as a crutch to avoid actually balancing the DPS with each other.

[bubblesbutternut]

woahhhh there buddy are you using a calculator to get that information that is against community guidelines and yoshida psa that can be enforced if admins roll a d20 that
remember it is third party hardware wwww
T

[Aikaal]

I'm not saying melee don't have leeway or that triple melee wouldnt work this tier (NIN in particular has a lot of leeway with mudra)

But even last tier there were mechanics like Phoenix spread, Pinax Bio, far towers in Act One on P4S P2. There were plenty of near-full uptime fights that still had limited places for the tanks and melee to be. Even on this tier we would be forcing a tank to run out for regular octaflares, having a melee go far with first wind debuff in Agdistis, and having a melee go to far towers in Carbuncle

I don't think melee should be doing meaningfully more damage, but I think "at most two melee" is core to their raid design, and they aren't going to allow triple roles.

I don't mind the concept of the role bonus. It only was a horrible addition because it was used as a crutch to avoid actually balancing the DPS with each other.

The reason we only have 2 melee DPS is because the party system gives a 1% buff for a caster and a ranged. If it wasn't there, I can guarantee you even on fights that has pinax and spread you would have 4 melee DPS and 2 would lose 1-2 GCDs. Because they'd still do a ton more DPS. But this was fixed this tier, there is no downtime because Melees play like Ranged Physical lol.

Regarding far towers on P5S. At worst you'd lose 1 GCD? You don't lose 10% DPS when you lose 1 GCD. Hitboxes are huge. Last tier was stupid because melee were too strong. This tier is exposing jsut how ridiculously unbalanced the game has became because they still buffed melee this tier.

An ideal proper meta would be melee/caster/ranged/flex. We don't have a flex, we have a second melee because of how broken they are lol. There is no hope right now for prog Black Mages and they'll instantly replaced SMN/RDM on speed clears. DNC is the best option because SAM is just ridiculously OP as a dancing partner.

[Aurora428]

The reason we only have 2 melee DPS is because the party system gives a 1% buff for a caster and a ranged. If it wasn't there, I can guarantee you even on fights that has pinax and spread you would have 4 melee DPS and 2 would lose 1-2 GCDs. Because they'd still do a ton more DPS. But this was fixed this tier, there is no downtime because Melees play like Ranged Physical lol.

Regarding far towers on P5S. At worst you'd lose 1 GCD? You don't lose 10% DPS when you lose 1 GCD. Hitboxes are huge. Last tier was stupid because melee were too strong. This tier is exposing jsut how ridiculously unbalanced the game has became because they still buffed melee this tier.

An ideal proper meta would be melee/caster/ranged/flex. We don't have a flex, we have a second melee because of how broken they are lol. There is no hope right now for prog Black Mages and they'll instantly replaced SMN/RDM on speed clears. DNC is the best option because SAM is just ridiculously OP as a dancing partner.

I absolutely agree, but the comment I was responding to wanted to make roles based on how selfish the job is. That would be triple or quadra melee lol. (and require melee to be balanced with ranged anyways)

Trust me you are never going to see me advocating the ranged tax. I hated that crap since Shadowbringers.

It's not fun that 3 jobs were all in the garbage bin and now 3 more are. It's only going to get worse as more is added.

[Nutshell]

(and require melee to be balanced with ranged anyways)

No they wouldn't. They would just have to balance within roles if there were four roles to choose from.
They could take MCH, SAM, and BLM from their current groups and put them into a new one. Buff MCH to be around the same level as SAM and BLM and boom all balancing is basically done. People would still bring BRD or DNC even if MCH did 10% more dps because a pranged (which MCH wouldn't be part of the "pranged" role anymore) is required to get that necessary party buff.

I don't actually think they will do what I'm suggesting. It just seems like this is the best way to fix MCH. If they leave it as it is MCH basically has three options. Stay woefully irrelevant in the prange role, be over powered in the prange role, or change MCH into a Bard with a gun, which would just be another step towards homogeneity of dps classes.

[Aikaal]

Hehe, no worries. I'm just disappointed in SE. It feels like a supervisor didn't check his dev team on the balance and let them do whatever. Basically got asked into Summoner when I just don't appreciate the job. It sucks because it is canonically my favorite FF job and I can't enjoy it because I can't optimize it. Well, I've been contemplating quitting the raid scene. It has gradually gotten worst over time and it can't be said enough that Endwalker is the worst expansion regarding job balance. I don't have much to prove myself anymore anyways since I cleared DSR on 6.1.